Statistics

According
to UCAS, in 2011
55% of people accepted on to medical degree courses in the UK were women. In 2013, women made up only 9.95% of consultant surgeons in England. The
increased proportion of female medical students appears not be translating
through into a similarly increased proportion of women surgeons.

However,
training in surgery can take around 10 years after graduation, so we would
expect it to take sometime for all these new female doctors to train and become
consultants. In 2013, 28% of surgical trainees were women. The proportion of
women surgeons has continued to rise for many years, and we see no reason as to
why this would slow down.

Women
are represented in all nine surgical specialities and at all levels within a
surgical career. Vascualrsurgery has the highest proportion of women
surgeons, with 40% consultants being women, paediatric surgery and plastic surgery also
have higher proportions of women surgeons, with 24% and 16% respectively.